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NET Language in a Nutshell, Second Edition [Book]

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VB.NET Language in a Nutshell, Second Edition by Steven Roman PhD, Paul Lomax, …

Classes and Objects

Generally speaking, a class is a software component that defines and implements one or more
interfaces. (Strictly speaking, a class need not implement all the members of an interface. We
discuss this later when we talk about abstract members.) In different terms, a class combines data,
functions, and types into a new type. Microsoft uses the term type to include classes.

Class Modules in VB.NET

Under Visual Studio.NET, a VB class module is inserted into a project using the Add Class menu
item on the Project menu. This inserts a new module containing the code:

Public Class ClassName

End Class

Although Visual Studio stores each class in a separate file, this isn’t a requirement. It is the
Class...End Class construct that marks the beginning and end of a class definition. Thus, the code
for more than one class as well as one or more code modules (which are similarly delimited by the
Module...End Module construct) can be contained in a single source code file.

The CPerson class defined in the next section is an example of a VB class module.

Class Members
In VB.NET, class modules can contain the following types of members:

Data members

This includes member variables (also called fields) and constants.

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Event members

Events are procedures that are called automatically by the Common SignLanguage
In Runtime
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in response to some action that occurs, such as an object being created, a button being
clicked, a piece of data being changed, or an object going out of scope.
VB.NET Language in a Nutshell, Second Edition by Steven Roman PhD, Paul Lomax, …
Function members

This refers to both functions and subroutines. A function member is also called a
method. A class’ constructor is a special type of method. We discuss constructors in
detail later in this chapter.

Property members

A property member is implemented as a Private member variable together with a

special type of VB function that incorporates both accessor functions of the property.
We discuss the syntax of this special property function in Section 4.3.5 later in the
chapter.

Type members

A class member can be another class, which is then referred to as a nested class.

The following CPerson class illustrates some of the types of members:

Public Class CPerson

' -------------
' Data Members
' -------------
' Member variables
Private msName As String
Private miAge As Integer

' Member constant

Public Const MAXAGE As Short = 120

' Member event

Public Event Testing( )

' ----------------
' Function Members
' ----------------

' Method
Public Sub Test( )
RaiseEvent Testing( )
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End Sub

Property Age( ) As Integer Sign In START FREE TRIAL

Get
Age = miAge

VB.NET End
Language
Get
in a Nutshell, Second Edition by Steven Roman PhD, Paul Lomax, …
Set(ByVal Value As Integer)
' Some validation
If Value < 0 Then
MsgBox("Age cannot be negative.")
Else
miAge = Value
End If
End Set
End Property

' Property
Property Name( ) As String
' Accessors for the property
Get
Name = msName
End Get
Set(ByVal Value As String)
msName = Value
End Set
End Property

' Overloaded constructor

Overloads Sub New( )

End Sub

' Constructor that initializes name

Overloads Sub New(ByVal sNewName As String)
msName = sNewName
End Sub

Sub Dispose( )
' Code here to clean up
End Sub

End
Class

The Public Interface of a VB.NET Class

We have seen that, when speaking in general object-oriented terms, the exposed members of a
software component constitute the component’s public interface (or just interface). Now, in
VB.NET, each member of a class module has an access type, which may be Public, Private,
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Friend, Protected, or Protected Friend. We discuss each of these in detail later in this chapter.
Suffice it to say, a VB.NET class module may accordingly have Public, Private, Friend,
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Protected, and Protected Friend members.

Thus, we faceLanguage
VB.NET some ambiguity in defining
in a Nutshell, the concept
Second Editionof
bythe publicRoman
Steven interface of aPaul
PhD, VB.NET class.
Lomax, … The
spirit of the term might indicate that we should consider any member that is exposed outside of the
class itself as part of the public interface of the class. This would include the Protected, Friend,
and Protected Friend members, as well as the Public members. On the other hand, some might
argue that the members of the public interface must be exposed outside of the project in which the
class resides, in which case only the Public members would be included in the interface.
Fortunately, we need not make too much fuss over the issue of what exactly constitutes a VB.NET
class’ public interface, as long as we remain aware that the term may be used differently by
different people.

Objects
A class is just a description of some properties and methods and does not have a life of its own
(with the exception of shared members, which we discuss later). In general, to execute the methods
and use the properties of a class, we must create an instance of the class, officially known as an
object. Creating an instance of a class is referred to as instancing, or instantiating, theclass.

There are three ways to instantiate an object of a VB.NET class. One method is to declare a variable
of the class’ type:

Dim APerson As CPerson

and then instantiate the object using the New keyword as follows:

APerson = New CPerson( )

We can combine these two steps as follows:

Dim APerson As New CPerson( )

or:

Dim APerson As CPerson = New CPerson( )

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The first syntax is considered shorthand for the second.

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Properties
VB.NET
Properties areLanguage
members in a Nutshell,
that Second Edition
can be implemented in twoby Steven ways.
different RomanIn PhD, Paul Lomax, …
its simplest
implementation, a property is just a public variable, as in:

Public Class CPerson

Public Age As Integer

End Class

The problem with this implementation of the Age property is that it violates the principle of
encapsulation; anyone who has access to a CPerson object can set its Age property to any Integer
value, even negative integers, which are not valid ages. In short, there is no opportunity for data
validation. (Moreover, this implementation of a property does not permit its inclusion in the public
interface of the class, as we have defined that term.)

The “proper” object-oriented way to implement a property is to use a Private data member along
with a special pair of function members. The Private data member holds the property value; the
pair of function members, called accessors, are used to get and set the property value. This
promotes data encapsulation, since we can restrict access to the property via code in the accessor
functions, which can contain code to validate the data. The following code implements the Age
property:

Private miAge As Integer

Property Age( ) As Integer

Get
Age = miAge
End Get
Set(ByVal Value As Integer)
' Some validation
If Value < 0 Then
MsgBox("Age cannot be negative.")
Else
miAge = Value
End If
End Set
End Property

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As you can see from the previous code, VB has a special syntax for defining the property accessors.
As soon as we finish typing the line:
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Property Age( ) As Integer

VB.NET Language in a Nutshell, Second Edition by Steven Roman PhD, Paul Lomax, …
the VB IDE automatically creates the following template:

Property Age( ) As Integer

Get

End Get
Set(ByVal Value As Integer)

End Set
End Property

Note the Value parameter that provides access to the incoming value. Thus, if we write:

Dim cp As New CPerson( )

cp.Age = 20

then VB passes the value 20 into the Property procedure in the Value argument.

Instance and Shared Members

The members of a class fall into two categories:

Instance members

Members that can only be accessed through an instance of the class, that is, through an
object of the class. To put it another way, instance members “belong” to an individual
object rather than to the class as a whole.

Shared (static) members

Members that can be accessed without creating an instance of the class. These members
are shared among all instances of the class. More correctly, they are independent of any
particular object of the class. To put it another way, shared members “belong” to the
class as a whole, rather than to its individual objects or instances.

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Instance members are accessed by qualifying the member name with the object’s name. Here is an
example:
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Dim APerson As New CPerson( )

VB.NET Language
APerson.Age = 50 in a Nutshell, Second Edition by Steven Roman PhD, Paul Lomax, …

To access a shared member, we simply qualify the member with the class name. For instance, the
String class in the System namespace of the .NET Framework Class Library has a shared method
called Compare that compares two strings. Its syntax (in one form) is:

Public Shared Function Compare(String, String) As Integer

This function returns 0 if the strings are equal, -1 if the first string is less than the second, and 1 if
the first string is greater than the second. Since the method is shared, we can write:

Dim s As String = "steve"

Dim t As String = "donna"
MsgBox(String.Compare(s, t)) ' Displays 1

Note the way the Compare method is qualified with the name of the String class.

Shared members are useful for keeping track of data that is independent of any particular instance
of the class. For instance, suppose we want to keep track of the number of CPerson objects in
existence at any given time. Then we write code such as the following:

' Declare a Private shared variable to hold the instance count

Private Shared miInstanceCount As Integer

' Increment the count in the constructor

' (If there are additional constructors,
' this code must be added to all of them.)
Sub new( )
miInstanceCount += 1
End Sub

' Supply a function to retrieve the instance count

Shared Function GetInstanceCount( ) As Integer
Return miInstanceCount
End Function

' Decrement the count in the destructor

Overrides Protected Sub Finalize( )
miInstanceCount -= 1
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8/29/2019 Classes and Objects - VB.NET Language in a Nutshell, Second Edition [Book]
miInstanceCount 1
MyBase.Finalize
End Sub
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Now, code such as the following accesses the shared variable:

VB.NET Language in a Nutshell, Second Edition by Steven Roman PhD, Paul Lomax, …
Dim steve As New CPerson( )
MsgBox(CPerson.GetInstanceCount) ' Displays 1
Dim donna As New CPerson( )
MsgBox(CPerson.GetInstanceCount) ' Displays 2

Class Constructors
When an object of a particular class is created, the compiler calls a special function called the class’
constructor or instance constructor. Constructors can be used to initialize an object when necessary.
(Constructors take the place of the Class_ Initialize event in earlier versions of VB.)

We can define constructors in a class module. However, if we choose not to define a constructor,
VB uses a default constructor. For instance, the line:

Dim APerson As CPerson = New CPerson( )

invokes the default constructor of our CPerson class simply because we have not defined a custom
constructor.

To define a custom constructor, we just define a subroutine named New within the class module.
For instance, suppose we want to set the Name property to a specified value when a CPerson object
is first created. Then we can add the following code to the CPerson class:

' Custom constructor

Sub New(ByVal sName As String)
Me.Name = sName
End Sub

Now we can create a CPerson object and set its name as follows:

Dim APerson As CPerson = New CPerson("fred")

or:

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Dim APerson As New CPerson("fred")

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Note that because VB.NET supports function overloading (discussed later in this chapter), we can
define multiple constructors in a single class, provided each constructor has a unique argument
VB.NET Language in a Nutshell, Second Edition by Steven Roman PhD, Paul Lomax, …
signature. We can then invoke any of the custom constructors simply by supplying the correct
number and type of arguments for that constructor.

Note also that once we define one or more custom constructors, we can no longer invoke the
default (that is, parameterless) constructor with a statement such as:

Dim APerson As New CPerson( )

Instead, to call a parameterless constructor, we must specifically add the constructor to the class
module:

' Default constructor

Sub New( )
...
End Sub

Finalize, Dispose, and Garbage Collection

In VB 6, a programmer can implement the Class_Terminate event to perform any clean up
procedures before an object is destroyed. For instance, if an object held a reference to an open file,
it might be important to close the file before destroying the object itself.

In VB.NET, the Terminate event no longer exists, and things are handled quite differently. To
understand the issues involved, we must first discuss garbage collection.

When the garbage collector determines that an object is no longer needed (which it does, for
instance, when the running program no longer holds a reference to the object), it automatically
runs a special destructor method called Finalize. However, it is important to understand that, unlike
with the Class_Terminate event, we have no way to determine exactly when the garbage collector
will call the Finalize method. We can only be sure that it will be called at some time after the last
reference to the object is released. Any delay is due to the fact that the .NET Framework uses a
system called reference-tracing garbage collection, which periodically releases unused resources.

Finalize is a Protected method. That is, it can be called from a class and its derived classes, but it is
not callable from outside the class, including by clients of the class. (In fact, since the Finalize

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destructor is automatically called by the garbage collector, a class should never call its own Finalize
method directly.) If a class’ Finalize method is present, then it should explicitly call its base class’
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Finalize method as well. Hence, the general syntax and format of the Finalize method is:

VB.NET Language
Overrides ProtectedinSub
a Nutshell,
Finalize(Second
) Edition by Steven Roman PhD, Paul Lomax, …
' Cleanup code goes here
MyBase.Finalize
End Sub

The benefits of garbage collection are that it is automatic and it ensures that unused resources are
always released without any specific interaction on the part of the programmer. However, it has the
disadvantages that garbage collection cannot be initiated directly by application code and some
resources may remain in use longer than necessary. Thus, in simple terms, we cannot destroy
objects on cue.

We should note that not all resources are managed by the Common Language Runtime. These
resources, such as Windows handles and database connections, are thus not subject to garbage
collection without specifically including code to release the resources within the Finalize method.
But, as we have seen, this approach does not allow us or clients of our class to release resources on
demand. For this purpose, the Framework Class Library defines a second destructor called
Dispose. Its general syntax and usage is:

Class classname
Implements IDisposable

Public Sub Dispose( ) Implements IDisposable.Dispose

' cleanup code goes here
' call child objects' Dispose methods, if necessary, here
End Sub

' Other class code

End Class

Note that classes that support this callable destructor must implement the IDisposable interface
— hence the Implements statement just shown. IDisposable has just one member, the Dispose
method.

It is important to note that it is necessary to inform any clients of the class that they must call this
method specifically in order to release resources. (The technical term for this is the manual
approach!)

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